Faculty Research Profiles: Ruth Brown

My research interests include examining the ways in which girls of color, particularly, African American girls, negotiate decision-making, the rhetoric of self-esteem, and punitive social policies in the contexts of their everyday lives. I am interested in understanding the politics of black girls’ lives in light of their limited access to traditional avenues of political activity and the heightened social policing and surveillance of their bodies. This research will provide a greater understanding of the complexity of girls’ experiences with a host of government institutions, starting with schools and including health facilities and the prison industrial complex. Beyond contributing to an innovative and emerging research agenda on Black Girl Studies, my broad areas of research include Cultural Politics, Performance Studies, and Politics and Inequality. I teach courses on African American Girlhood, Qualitative and Interpretive Methodologies, Feminist Theory and Practice, and Youth Development Programming and After-School Interventions. Often, the most insightful teaching and learning moments occur outside of the classroom. For this reason, I work with a group of brilliant students to organize Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths (Solhot) in Urbana-Champaign, IL. As a critical method of civic engagement, Solhot is a program designed for African American girls to create a space dedicated to who we are, what we have overcome, and what we need others to know. I grew up in south suburban Chicago, IL and received my B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 2005 I earned my doctorate in Political Science at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor as well as completed a certificate in Women's Studies and Performance Studies. I am a bravebird like Amel Larrieux/ I dream of creating scholarship where I go/share what I know/ then you. I may be the one on stage but I know that everyone in the audience is a star too. Let’s dismantle the barriers set up to divide/ let’s create a space is where we heal the hurts/previously advised/ to bury inside. Collectively act/claim our space/history/ & innovate/ let’s freestyle our fate/ cuz the cipher is our birthright.